The news stories didn’t say which agency handled the deal, but I’m pretty sure it was Everybody Go Long & Foster.

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The stories did say, however, that police removed about 60 dogs from the property, many of them injured and/or underfed. Obviously, Vick’s cousin, who was occupying the house, hadn’t gotten down to his final 53-dog roster.

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NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is really steamed, I hear. Despite the severity of some of the dogs’ injuries, they were still being listed as “probable.”

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Who knows what Clinton Portis was thinking when he tried, lamely, to stick up for Vick? This much I do know, though: The Redskins will never again play “Who Let the Dogs Out?” over the P.A. system.

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As penance, Clinton should be locked in a film room at Redskin Park and be forced to watch every one of “The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin.”

Accompanied by his alter ego, Sheriff Gonna Getcha.

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Glad the NFL finally got a clue and ceased efforts to trademark the phrase “The Big Game” (for the Super Bowl). One of the attorneys who fought the move said the league “saw that it did not make a lot of sense to try to register a descriptive and even generic term that many people and companies throughout the country have used for many years to refer to many games in many sports.”

Besides, if the NFL had pulled it off, there’s no telling what it would have done next. It might have tried to obtain exclusive use of Roman numerals.

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Elsewhere in football, American tennis player Mardy Fish visited the Rhein Fire of NFL Europa last week and attempted to boot a field goal. The resulting sprained ligaments will keep him out of the French Open.

Memo to Mardy: In the future, just to be on the safe side, you should confine yourself to a kick serve.

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Post by “brentsod” on ESPN.com after ‘96 Tour de France champ Bjarne Riis admitted using performance-enhancing drugs — and the Tour asked him to return the winner’s yellow jersey:

“The Tour should take his title away and give it to the guy who finished 2nd. Let’s see … that was Jan Ullrich. Uh … well … Ullrich is a proven doper so they better give the title to the guy who finished third. Let’s see … that was Richard Virenque, another admitted EPO user. How about the 4th place finisher Laurent Dufaux? Uh … he served a suspension for EPO use too. O.K. forget that. Just let Riis keep his Tour title.”

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The recent rash of confessions by cyclists reminds me of a movie — I’m blanking on the name — in which a guy bursts into a courtroom and shouts, “All right, I admit it! I killed him, the dirty rat!” (Or something to that effect.) And then somebody tells him he’s in the wrong court.

Instead of having Riis give back the yellow jersey, how about making him wear it once a year with the Scarlet Letter C — for cheater — embroidered on it?

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Boy, I wouldn’t want to own stock right now in Riis’ Peanut Butter Cups.

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According to a survey conducted by GMAC Insurance, Idaho has the best drivers in the country and New York (surprise, surprise) the worst. In fact, New York’s drivers are so bad, they rank below Callaway’s.

Howell, miraculously, is ranked fifth on the money list and 17th in the world. Among the others, though, only Goosen (48/9) is in the top 50 in either category.

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Why aren’t golf fans more excited about the FedEx Cup? Well, put it this way: Which would you rather have, 100,000 FedEx Cup points or 100,000 frequent-flyer miles?

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This report out of Austin, Texas — about the stripper who embezzled more than $1 million from a bank to start her own NASCAR team — is one of the all-timers, isn’t it? The ecdysiast in question, one Fatemeh Angela Harkness, has wanted to get into auto racing, apparently, ever since she overheard a patron say, “Would you get a look at the headlights on her!”

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I’m not saying the Pistons-Cavs series has been a snooze, but in the first two games, neither team scored as many points as Kobe Bryant did against the Raptors on Jan. 22, 2006 (81).

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And finally, in college basketball, the rules committee moved the 3-point line — beginning in 2008-09 — from 19 feet, 9 inches to Row 3, Section 111.

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